Today is the tenth anniversary of Ayrton Senna's death at Imola.
So what has happened in Formula 1? Are the cars safer, slower,
is the driving cleaner? Yes, No and definitely not - Michael's
outrageous punting off of JPM at Imola is graphic evidence of
how low F1 driver standards have sunk in the past decade.
I watched both accidents at Imola ten years ago (I also watched Berger's accident at Tamburello a few years previously), Ayrton's didn't affect me. Maybe I was in shock, but I didn't like the guy. Sure he was exquisitely fast, but his general attitude to racing - if in doubt punt your rivals off - was abhorrent to me, imagine your grief if Michael was killed today? Rightly or wrongly that's how I felt about Ayrton.
Roland
Ratzenberger
was a different matter; he was one of the good guys. I'd seen him
race at Le Mans a few times, and he was no muppet paying for a seat.
I believe he was Toyota's first non-Japanese works driver, which
in those days said a lot, even if Toyota's current approach to
employing drivers is somewhat surreal. Just wanting Schumi lite
never mind being willing to pay him millions is rather odd...
Watching a driver (or any human being) being given heart massage on live television is not an everyday sight, and it's not one I want to see again. But that's what I saw after Roland's accident and it was very moving and disturbing. Later in 1994 I went to Le Mans and one of the SARD Toyotas had four drivers' names painted next to the door, but only three drivers at the circuit; Eddie Irvine, Jeff Krosnoff and Mauro Martini. This was going to be Roland's car. 90 minutes from the end of the race it was leading, when it slowed and stopped just past me on the pit straight with a broken gear linkage. Krosnoff got out of the car, went around the back and manually selected third gear. He then proceeded off on a slow lap of the 9 mile circuit before pitting for the linkage to be replaced. The car lost 13 minutes and dropped back to third place 15 seconds behind the second placed car. Irvine cut this lead at a rate of three seconds per lap, and I've never seen so many people willing a car to go faster. Irvine took second place on the penultimate lap, but the lead car was a lap ahead, and "Roland's" team had to settle for second place.
Roland, Ayrton, rest in peace.
